White House: O-Care site fixes on track

The White House said Monday that teams remain "on track" to have technical issues with the ObamaCare website resolved with less than a week to go before a self-imposed deadline to have the website working.

"We continue to be on track to meeting the goals that we established for ourselves and established for the website on Nov. 30," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday.

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The White House says there has been "steady improvement" in the speed of the website, and that it should be prepared to handle 50,000 concurrent users by the end of the month.

That was the original goal of the website, which collapsed after being inundated with interest during its opening weeks. The administration estimated that as many as a quarter of a million people were attempting to simultaneously access the website during the days immediately following the launch.

To prevent a similar flood from overwhelming the system after its relaunch, Earnest said that the administration had created a "queuing system" for times of intense demand.

If more than 50,000 users are attempting to access the website, users can either wait to be granted access or choose to receive an email notifying them that traffic has died down. Those users will be given a link putting them at the front of the line to access the website.

Earnest said the improvements would "significantly enhance the consumer experience on the website."

“It had to be frustrating for people who would repeatedly go to the website and find that they couldn’t log on because the website is busy," the White House spokesman said.

Last week, website czar Jeffrey Zients said he remained optimistic that HealthCare,gov could handle the expected crush of users looking to sign up for insurance before the end of the year. Coverage under ObamaCare can begin on Jan. 1, as long as customers purchase their plans by Dec. 23 and pay their premiums by Dec. 31.

"We think this gives us the capacity we need to reach everybody we need to reach across this period of time," said Zients.

Zeints said there would not be a "magic moment" when work with the website was done, but that he was encouraged by progress made so far.